Tribes, Nomads And Settled Communities

(a) The new castes emerging with in varnas were called jatis.

As the economy and the needs of society grew, people with new skills were required. On the basis of their work and their status in the society they were divided in different jatis.

(b) Buranjis were historical works written by the Ahoms.

Buranjis are a class of historical chronicles. The first Buranji was written on the instructions of the first Ahom king Sukaphaa who established the Ahom kingdom in 1228.

(c) The Akbar Nama mentions that Garha Katanga had 70,000 villages.

Akbar Nama is the official chronicle of the reign Akbar, the third Mughal Emperor.

(d) As tribal states became bigger and stronger, they gave land grants to poets and scholars.

In medieval time when tribal states became bigger and stronger, they start giving land grants to poets and scholars.

(a) Tribal societies had rich oral traditions (True)

Tribal people do not have any written records but they do have rich customs and oral traditions which were passed down to each new generation.

(b) There were no tribal communities in the north-western part of the subcontinent (False)

The Balochis were the large and powerful tribe in North-West.

(c) The chaurasi in Gond states contained several cities (False)

A chaurasi in Gond states was a unit of 84 villages.

(d) The Bhils lived in the north-eastern part of the subcontinent (False)

The Bhils were spread across western and central parts of India.

Nomadic pastoralists used to move from place to another with their animals, so, they hadto exchange pastoral products like wool, ghee, etc. with settled agriculturalists for grain, cloth, utensils and other products.

1. Ahom state was dependent on forced labour called Paiks.

2. Ahom society was divided into clans called khels. A khel controlled several villages.

3. All adult males served in the army during the war and other times they were engaged in building dams, irrigation or in other public work.

4. People from heavily populated areas were shifted to less populated places and the administration became more centralized in the first half of the seventeenth century.

5. Peasants were assigned land by the village community.

Within the varna-based society:

1. Smaller castes called jatis emerged.

2. Many tribes and social groups were taken into cast-based society and given the status of jatis.

3. Jatis, rather than varna, became the basis for organizing society.

4. Artisans, smiths, carpenters and masons were also given the status of separate jati.

After being organized into a state:

1. Tribal societies gradually got divided into unequal social classes called cast system.

2. The leading families joined the ruling class, while the others joined the lower jatis.

3. Some tribes adopted the Islam in North-west frontier.

4. Others who were powerful conflicted with the larger kingdoms and empires.

The banjaras were very important for the economy.

1. They were the trader-nomads who used to travel from one place to another for trading purpose.

2. They were used to transport grains to the city market.

3. They helped traders by working as carriers.

4. At the same time they transported food grains for the Mughal army during their campaigns.

5. Sometimes they were hired by the merchants to trade for them in different cities.

The histories of Ahoms and Gonds were different in the way that:

1. Gonds were completely annexed by the Mughals, while the Ahoms managed to reclaim their independence soon after their annexation.

2. Gonds lived in vast forest region called Gondwana while Ahoms were migrated to Brahmaputra valley.

3. Gonds practiced shifting cultivation and Ahoms didn’t.

They were similar in the fact that:

● Both had risen from being small tribal communities to becoming powerful tribal states.

● Both the tribes modelled themselves on other centralized kingdoms.

● Both the tribes had a centralized administration system.